"Mr. Martin, was there some kind of accident with the experiment?" the security guard asked cautiously, looking at Martin, who was covered in blood.

"It’s nothing. I haven’t done hands-on work in a while and spilled a blood bag. I’ll have someone come clean it up," Martin replied calmly. "Take me to the security room. I need to save a copy of the experiment footage."

"Oh, alright."

...

「A few hours later.」

Martin sat in his office, his eyes red and with dark circles under them as he replayed the experiment footage over and over.

He had deleted the footage from the security room, keeping only one copy for himself.

The bizarre images repeating on the recording tormented him, and the sense of unknown dread lingered.

Carrying this fear with him, he went to an operating room where a blood exchange procedure was being prepared.

"Mr. Martin, are you going to perform the procedure yourself?" a doctor present asked in confusion upon seeing him.

"No, I’m just here to observe."

Martin’s voice trembled slightly. The last time he had operated himself was on Anna and the wealthy woman, but that had produced such a bizarre result.

The doctor acknowledged him and began the procedure. They were all seasoned experts whom Martin had hired at great expense. With the help of advanced equipment, this kind of surgery was simple for them.

After watching the surgery, Martin left.

The next day, he anxiously went to the home of the tycoon who had undergone surgery yesterday, wanting to see if there were any changes. As it turned out, nothing had happened.

’Could it be that this only happens when I do it myself?’

He quickly had several medical interns come to the lab and repeat the experiment he had performed on the mice that day.

Everything was normal.

"That’s not right... It shouldn’t be like this," Martin muttered, looking at the unchanged mice.

"Did we do something wrong, Mr. Martin?" one of the interns asked, perplexed, after overhearing his muttering.

"No, you did it perfectly."

Martin forced a stiff smile.

That night, Martin returned to the lab alone. He first repeated his experiment, and after getting the same result, he killed the mouse.

Immediately after, he added sodium cyanide to the human blood and repeated the experiment again.

But the result this time was even more surprising. The mouse injected with the human blood didn’t die from the poison.

Instead, it had gained a sodium cyanide toxin ability.

All the fluids in the mouse’s body now contained sodium cyanide, which was secreted continuously from its glands.

The mouse and the sodium cyanide had entered into symbiosis.

Upon discovering this, Martin, contrary to what one might expect, felt a sense of relief.

Because the sanatorium was filled with prominent figures from all walks of life, Martin had heard many things about the Great Cataclysm from them.

If all of this was a phenomenon caused by some kind of Relic, then everything could be explained.

Martin let out a long sigh of relief. His medical principles weren’t wrong.

The world was what was wrong.

He casually drew some tap water, mixed it with some waste blood, and injected it into a mouse, watching it continue to scamper about energetically.

After a while, Martin killed the mouse and found that the fluids in its body were all mixed with tap water.

Now he was even more certain.

Martin sat in the lab chair for a long time and shook his head helplessly.

Then he closed the door and walked out of the lab, looking relieved.

"Mr. Martin, done so soon today? Was the experiment a success?" The security guard couldn’t help but ask, seeing he was in a good mood.

"Haha, it was a failure."

Martin left, humming a tune, under the security guard’s baffled gaze.

He slept until the evening of the next day, then went to Anna’s door.

He opened the door, and an elderly woman walked out to greet him.

Her hair was slightly yellowed, with faint hints of gold, but was mostly white, messy, and thin.

Her wrinkled face held an unspeakable weariness, and her eyes, as they looked at Martin, were clouded, holding a numbness that seemed to accept fate.

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. After trying for a long time, she finally managed to force out a hoarse sound.

"Mr. Martin... Didn’t you say... this was all a scam?"

Martin hung his head, speechless...

「A few days later.」

News that the sanatorium was closing down spread throughout the circles of the wealthy.

"I heard Mr. Martin came down with some illness and can’t run it anymore."

"His Blood Exchange Therapy was quite effective, too. What a shame."

"..."

They continued their conversation, moving on to another life-extension method. No one cared what illness Martin had contracted anymore.

「Meanwhile.」

Official researchers were watching as Martin skillfully injected blood, turning a mouse into a tiger that oozed oil. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

"This is my ability. Is there anything else you need to know?" Martin asked.

The researcher looked surprised, then said gravely, "Have you considered this? You might be under surveillance for the rest of your life, because we haven’t found the Relic’s true form yet."

"I don’t care. Consider it the price."

「Some time later.」

A special Relic appeared in the database.

...

[Relic: Martin]

[Price: Blood]

[Ability: Can use blood to change a lifeform’s species, form, age, etc. Substances mixed into the blood will enter into symbiosis with the lifeform.]

[Discovered at: Earth]

[Discovered by: Martin]

...

The price of this Relic caused endless debate among the researchers.

Some researchers argued that if Martin himself was considered the Relic, then the recipient of the blood exchange should be considered the user, and the price they paid was the transformation of their own body.

However, this explanation was too confusing, and Relic records were meant to be kept simple.

In the end, they designated the raw material—the blood Martin needed for the exchange—as the price.

Martin’s subsequent whereabouts were unknown, as this was not included in the scope of the file.

After reading the file, Mo Ling understood why the database had linked the robed figures’ ritual to this Relic.

’It’s also a form of blood exchange, and they mix those strange, rotten fragments into the blood.’

The sphere of blood floating in the sky was a mixture of the blood of all the robed figures present. After absorbing it, none of them suffered a hemolytic reaction.

’It’s impossible that they all have the same blood type, right?’

Mo Ling also noticed something else: the Relic in the file had a major limitation—the Relic itself was a person, Martin himself.

Only Martin could use this ability, and it could only be used on each person once.

But these robed figures had clearly bypassed this limitation. They were using another method to perform the blood exchange.

However, Mo Ling didn’t think the ritual was actually working.

He had personally seen those rotten fragments accumulate inside the robed figures’ bodies, blocking their blood flow and even slicing through their blood vessels. This had nothing to do with symbiosis.

The file’s records were incomplete. The specific definition of "symbiosis" wasn’t clearly explained either.

’If it were true symbiosis, they shouldn’t have been harmed by those fragments.’

After reviewing all the information, Mo Ling felt even more confused.